Tamil Nadu will soon launch a community-based palliative care programme to reach out to patients affected by cancers in rural parts and provide home-based pain and palliative care, Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar said.
Shortly after inaugurating a Pain and Palliative Care Centre at the Government Royapettah Hospital on Wednesday, he told reporters that the programme will be rolled out in all 385 blocks of the State.
“We will be introducing the community-based palliative care this year. Each block will have one staff nurse and a physiotherapist who will visit villages and identify cancer-affected patients who are in the terminal stages. They will provide home-based pain and palliative care for them,” he said.
For this, the Health Department has appointed 385 staff nurses, and will soon appoint an equal number of physiotherapists, he added.
In a step towards improving cancer care in the government sector, the department is in the process of installing Linear Accelerators in 10 places at a cost of ₹210 crore. This would include Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Government Royapettah Hospital and Tamil Nadu Government Multi Super Specialty Hospital. “Cobalt Therapy units will come up at 14 hospitals,” he added.
Such units were already established in district headquarters hospitals including at Cuddalore, Dindigul, Tiruvallur, Krishnagiri, Namakkal, Kancheepuram, Coimbatore, Villupuram, Vellore, Erode and Salem, and medical college hospitals such as Tiruvarur, Tiruvannamalai. Currently, these units were being established at Ariyalur, Pennagaram, Nagapattinam, Karaikudi and Perambalur.
A total of 2,241 persons have benefited through these units. It would come at 17 medical college hospitals in this financial year, a press release said.
The Minister said that meeting the water requirements of hospitals across the State was a challenge but they have ensured that the needs are managed without problems. “Hospitals have their own sources. We have issued a special order to enable hospitals to meet their water supply by using the maintenance and repair funds,” he said.